Category Archives: invention

In a report launched in Brussels by EU commission vice president Neele Kroes, the App Market in Europe has the ability to generate around 4.8 million jobs within the next 5 years. In 2013, we saw the app market generate 17.5 billion euro and this is expected to rise to 63 billion by 2018. With the app market rising, coding seems to be becoming a very important life skill.

Attending the launch of this report was peter Vesterbacka, CMO of Rovio, the developer of Angry Birds. Vesterbacka spoke on the challenges of developing a healthy “app economy” in Europe and declared Angry Birds to be the “biggest digital brand ever”. He also mentioned a scheme to teach children how to code with the “Angry Birds Playground” educational programme.

The EurApp report is based on a study conducted over the course of a year by the Inishgt Centre for Data Analytics and NUI Galway .The study was in association with Gigaom Research and was conducted by John Breslin.

Only 6 billion euro of the above revenue was actually generated from app sales, spending within the apps and advertisement. The bulk of the revenue, came from contract labour.

To give an insight of the earning power of apps, Flappy Bird, a game which was released to app stores briefly this month, generated 50,000 euro in revenue per day for advertisement.

“We all know there’s been a huge growth in apps but the actual revenue numbers in terms of jobs, app sales and contract development work are very encouraging,” – Vesterbacka

What is your opinion on the future of the app market? Let us know @4pm!

Wolfgang Digital, a company of self-proclaimed Digital Marketing “Nerds”, recently carried out a study which examined the click through rate (or CTR) of the variety ad-types on Facebook, The study has proven that the number of clicks on ads that appear on a user’s newsfeed is significantly higher than ads elsewhere and thus receive a higher level of engagement

Over a seven month campaign, beginning in June 2013 and ending in January 2014, the Wolfgang Digital team analysed three million Facebook Impressions through 24/7 campaign. In doing so, Wolfgang Digital successfully determined that the average CTR for a facebook display ad (those which appear on the right hand side of the screen, beside the friends list), was 0.4pc,which is around half the average CTR for display ads across the net.

Ads in users news feeds however, were shown to hold a CTR of 2.09 PTC making them 51 times more likely to be clicked on than facebook display ads. The tremendous CTR of News Feed Ads is close to the CTR seen in ads by Google AdWords

There are roughly 2.4 million people across Ireland alone, who use Facebook. However, despite the massive user base, ads on Facebook often don’t receive the desired attention. Wolfgang’s figures are similar to those concluded by a study from AdRoll, stating news feed ads were 49 times more likely to generate clicks than display ads.

Microsoft has added a new feature to its Office Web Apps in order to take some of the legwork out of formatting your documents. The new “tell me what to do” feature allows you to implement commands into Office that you previously may not have known how to find, by typing the command into a small search bar. Once you begin typing, Office will begin to display possible commands.

An example of this new function would be to type “double space” into the field. Once you type double space into the field, you are given a list of options including Line Spacing. From there, you can enter the line spacing tab and proceed as per usual.

The app is not currently available for the desktop version of office but it is likely Microsoft are just testing it online in order to receive user feedback and to beta its functionality. It would be safe to assume that this feature will be added to the desktop client of Office after positive user feedback and any issues have been debugged.

Other features possibly on the line to be added to Microsoft Office include an easier to access layout (possibly making this cool new feature redundant), an easier rendering of shapes, text boxes and images as well as a more simple way to access end notes and footnotes.

Amazon knows what you want. So well in fact, that they intend to start shipping before you even place your order. In December 2013, the Seattle-based retailer took out a patent on the idea of shipping out goods before an order has even been placed. Items will be shipped based on previous orders, viewing history and other factors.

The idea is to remove the fear of important deliveries arriving late due to being shipped from a distance, encouraging online shopping; specifically from Amazon whilst also discouraging them from visiting physical stores.

This new formula for predicting orders to be placed could significantly reduce delivery time and greatly increase customer satisfaction. In the patent document for this formula, Amazon speaks of the delay between buying and receiving an item online and how it “may dissuade customers from buying items from online merchants”. The patent implies that items could wait to be shipped from the shipper’s trucks or storage hubs.

The patent shows different ways of deciding which items to be shipped to where, using factors from your wish list and search history to your returns and even how long you hover your cursor over products you view. All this is in a direct effort to cut down on delivery needs and to become the leader in a growing trend among businesses; to identify and meet consumer needs before even the consumer themselves do.

Amazon have added next day delivery recently by expanding on their warehouse network and also, in 2013, announced that they would be using unmanned drones to ship out packages in order to decrease delivery time by taking small packages directly from warehouses to the consumer’s door. In the patent, Amazon create the idea of filling out partial addresses or ZIP Codes, and using this to keep the item closer to the potential purchaser, with the rest of the label being filled out in transit.

It is unclear whether or not this new delivery tactic has or will been deployed, as no further comment has been made, but what it does is it shows just one way which Amazon is willing to manipulate their vast knowledge of their customers in order to leap ahead of competition.

However, the algorithms is not without flaws and in times of error the patent states that customers may be given discounts, or even receive the package as a gift in order to build strong customer-client relationships.

What are your thoughts of Amazon’s latest efforts to stay ahead of the competition? Let us know @4pm

system is finally nearing its end. In roughly 84 days, support for Windows XP will be cancelled. To sum this up, there will be no further updates for functionality or security.

The world is changing and since Windows XP was launched in 2001 there has been more than drastic changes in people’s technological needs. People require software and OS’s that match their needs and keep them ahead of the market. as well as a capability for security and compliance. Windows XP no longer provides these features.

Last year, IDC last year that the longer migration is put off the more expensive it is to support old versions such as Windows XP. IT labour costs go up 25% in the fourth year of continuing to run Windows XP past deadline,

Security experts have also issued a warning regarding hackers. It is their belief that hackers are storing up “zero-day” threats, targetting vulnerabilities within Windows XP that are created by the lack of support, or existing problems which have remained untouched or unfound.

As well as the security threats and lack of support caused by their “dropping” of the XP operating system, Microsoft also issued a warning that by continuing to use Windows XP, people (business and home users alike) lose out on the speed, functionality and mobility of using a modern computer and operating system.

“It’s a great time to lose the added weight of hefty old workhorse PC and software. Lighten up and increase your business and personal opportunity through increased productivity and cost savings by shedding XP and Office 2003 for a more agile and mobile operating system, like Windows 8.1 and Office 365. The only gains to be made is your ability to compete more efficiently and effectively in today’s competitive global market,” – Patrick Ward, Microsoft

Do you still use Windows XP? And if so, is this enough to make you abandon it? Let us know @4pm!